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Riemenschneider Examples
Other comparisons may be made within the following groups of chorales:
and:
I am interested in Bach Chorales for a number of reasons. Most significantly, I think, I, unlike thousands of other music students, actually enjoy the process of harmonising melodies in the style of Bach.
A second, perhaps more academic reason is that, since I've had to teach them, I've realised how difficult they are for some people and also, how badly many people have been taught (including, I'm afraid, some that I've taught). Why have they been badly taught? I would suggest that their teachers have themselves neither understood how the harmonisation works nor why they were teaching it (apart from getting students through one examination or another). Needless to say, this is not a very good start.
Why do I think that these items are important? Although I agree that they teach you to understand and manipulate musical rules (even if they appear arbritrary), the main reason is that Bach Chorales represent, to some extent, the basis of certain types of composition in a nutshell, and especially the somewhat vague nature of 'functionality' in classical harmony. This is itself in opposition to a commonly perceived notion that the Chorales 'teach' the use of functional, classical harmony. They do, but if they are taught badly, the impression can be (an is probably supposed to be!) that such a thing really exists throughout the chorale, and I don't believe this view is really supportable. How 'functional' is functional harmony in reality? Apart from the cadences, which is where the functionality actual occurs, how are these short phrases 'driven'. Research into developing software to generate Bach-type chorales, at first driven by a belief that there are sufficient and sufficiently sturdy 'rules' to allow this, has faltered and crumbled when it is realised that most of these 'rules' simply don't exist, or are at most statistical guidelines - things that Bach was more or less likely to do. The only other principal that seems to be involved is voice-leading, especially in terms of the bass part. Get the bass part right and the rest of the harmony is pretty well obvious - and will 'sound' and 'function' perfectly well - it's a matter of taste. You can forget about chord symbols, etc., except if you want to investigate the harmony that you've come up with.
Most people when they're taught about Bach Chorales, are told about 'the rules'. Which rules are these? Short answer - they're rules made up by people other than Bach. When we say that 'you can't write consecutive fifths (in other words two parts a fifth or a compound fifth apart on two consecutive occasions), what we should say is that it is extremely rare in Bach's output to find such occurrences. The same is true of consecutive octaves. It is also true, although to a significantly lesser extent, of 'doubled thirds of a major chord' and 'unprepared dissonances'.
What we really mean is that these things are stylistically unusual for Bach.
If someone suggests that there are immutable 'rules' about something, ask them why, and ask them to give you a definitive list of these rules. Don't be fobbed off with vague and vacuous well, there's this and this, or, more likely, ask you to do something and then suddenly discover a whole new rule book of which you were completely unaware. Usually you'll find they're not rules at all, but conventions which depend to a great extent on the context in which examples occur.
Take one of the above chorales and write out the melody in a traditional 'harmonising' format. Try, without interfering with the melody, to harmonise it in the most extraordinary, un-bach-like way you can. Don't break many 'rules', except maybe those involving chromaticism and false relations, (they're not rules anyway). As usual, still pay special heed to voice-leading - the parts should flow smoothly and interestingly. Don't use un-bachian dissonance or 'atonality'. You should find that, although the harmony sounds a little odd, it still makes sense, and may sound more interesting.